Bringing Bars Online

Don't you ever say the Internet never did anything for you. How else would you have scored that special Hello Kitty "shoulder massager" from Japan? Where else could you have bonded with that saucy little Star Trek fanfic minx from Portugal? Nowheres. For the Interweb knows no geographical boundaries. Which actually kind of sucks sometimes -- one-handed typing's a bitch, but it's cheaper than a round-trip ticket to Lisbon. And so, behold: LateNight Shots.com, a new invitation-only social networking site that's centered around your city's bar scene and, by extension, centered around you finding people to hook up with in town. (As far as I know, that's the only reason to go to a bar, right? Camaraderie? Tasty drinks? Nah.)

Dallas is one of just a few cities to be graced with a LateNightShots network. Founded in D.C. and slowly expanding to drinkers across the country, LNS is much like MySpace, in that you get to make a profile page with clever and witty answers to questions about stuff you like. But you also list your ten favorite bars (my current top five: Libertine, Barley House, Ship's, Cavern and the Ginger Man) and get to see which other regulars are showing up at your watering holes. If you see someone you like, you get to "brush up" against them in a kind of creepy virtual flirtation thing. You can also "spot" folks if you've seen them around town.

Right now, the top 10 Dallas bars -- the ones with the most regulars -- according to LNS are: the Idle Rich, the Loon, the Quarter, Corner Bar, Cretia's, Thomas Avenue Beverage Company, Ginger Man, Central Park, Knox Street Pub and the Old Monk.

Seeing a pattern here? I am too. The site's invitation-only, and obviously everyone who's been invited so far has a collective terrible fear of dive bars and East Dallas -- two things that usually go hand-in-hand. I'm doing my part to get the EDT on the map, but I can't do it without your help. Anyone who wants an invite should e-mail me. I wanna see Ship's in the top 10. We can do it, guys. --Andrea Grimes